BOSTON—Cabot Corp. will increase prices on all carbon black products sold by its Reinforcement Materials segment in North America.
Effective July 1, the 6 cents per pound price rise will address "the increasing costs to provide reliability and supply assurance to customers," Cabot said in a May 24 statement.
Additionally, Cabot said it is investing $200 million in nitrogen oxide (NOX) and sulphur dioxide (SO2) reduction projects to meet requirements set by the Environmental Protection Agency's emissions control initiative.
The company said operating costs are "increasing substantially" as the systems are put into service to meet industry deadlines in 2021 and 2022.
Cabot said it also was making "significant investments" in its manufacturing network to ensure equipment reliability "even at high plant utilizations."
As a result, Cabot said it would apply an additional feedstock surcharge of $0.05/pound in North America, where allowed under customer contracts.
The surcharge will take effect July 1 and replace the previous feedstock surcharge of 3 cents per pound.
Cabot said the increased feedstock surcharge is necessary to address the rising premiums for rubber carbon black feedstock relative to fuel oil indices in North America.
